Rins and Zarco battled for fifth place in the second round of the Dutch TT on Sunday at Assen when the Pramac rider made an aggressive push inside the Mandeven right-hand turn.
The Suzuki driver was nudged slightly by Zarco and had to run into the gravel, falling back from fourth to last – Rins had to recover to eleventh place as he felt he had speed to fight for the podium.
The incident was investigated by the stewards panel, but no further action was taken.
Rins says this type of aggression has been normal for Zarco since he made his MotoGP debut in 2017 and thought it was an “idiot move” by a championship contender.
“What happened to Mr. Johann? I think everyone saw it, ”Rins began. “Very, very bad luck. If I wasn’t there, he might go a long way.
“I didn’t expect this overtaking maneuver and the problem was his wing hit my arm and I had the wing on my arm so I just had to pick up the bike to avoid him.
“I’ll go to the gravel bed, last position, and try to regain some time later. And [I was] very unfortunate because the lap time was good and the pace was there. It wasn’t about the win, but about the top three, top four.
“But I mean, he destroyed our race. Since joining MotoGP in 2017, he’s been so aggressive in overtaking maneuvers.
“I mean, it was an idiotic move because he’s fighting for the World Cup there. So imagine we crashed together, I mean [it makes] no sense.”
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Zarco – who finished fourth in the race – felt that his train was “fully under control” and did not notice that Rins had gone off the track.
“I didn’t speak to him and I didn’t know he was upset,” Zarco said in response to Rins’ comments.
“We had contact, but it’s not an easy corner and at this moment in the race I want to stay in the front group.
“That was my strength [Turns] nine and 10. I even tried to overtake [Maverick] Vinales at this point, but Vinales was a little faster so I went far.
“But with Rins it’s true that we touched, but if you attack here it’s not easy to stay in.
“But I was clearly in control and I don’t know what happened if he went completely off the track or not.
“But for me at that moment with this overtaking maneuver, I was happy to overtake him and that nobody overtook us afterwards because we went a bit far and a guy like that [Joan] I can come really quickly because I am pretty hard to overtake.
“We didn’t speak, but people can come straight to me if they have to say something.”